Let’s start at the beginning - my Mom is a singer, piano player, Norwegian folk art painter, and craft store owner. My grandfather, on my mother’s side, was a woodworker and entrepreneur – I grew up around crafting. My grandfather, myself, and a family friend named Boo would make wooden horses, boxes, cabinets, and other wooden items for my mom to paint and teach painting classes. This early exposure to woodworking instilled in me the drive to make things. While my Mom had the crafting gene, my Dad was German. Nature vs. Nurture? I believe I had both – the craftiness from my Mom and the German precision and an innate drive to figure things out and do it right!

In high school, I didn’t do great in math but I excelled in drafting, electronics, and graphic arts. The skills classes kept my grade point up and that didn’t change in college where I majored in graphic arts achieving a perfect 4.0 in my major classes and overall, graduated with honors.

After college, I moved into a house with friends and proceeded to fill the garage with tools. I was becoming a real woodworker now! That has persisted all of my life, expanding into leather work, photography, making custom acoustic and electric guitars, guitar amplifiers, and speaker cabinets.